Logic wins out for this Washington lawmaker

[il padrone]

His arguments are too good - he's won me over ........(not)



From Seattle Bike Blog

[AKO]

Wow. I'm selling my bikes and driving the car everywhere from now on. Had no idea I was polluting the whole time.

[foo on patrol]

One word comes to mind and it starts with W and ends in R.

Foo

[Mulger bill]

Somebody oughta tell this bloke that The Gooier Male and Terday termorrer are not valid reference sources for anything.

[KonaCommuter]

http://bikeportland.org/2011/12/12/new- ... odes-63536" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Howzat]

One word comes to mind and it starts with W and ends in R.

Yes he does sound like a bit of a winger. Lemme guess what's next - in addition to taxing cyclists for their CO2 emissions, climate change is a hoax and carbon taxes should be repealed

[zero]

http://bikeportland.org/2011/12/12/new- ... odes-63536

One of the most bizzare truths of that particular page, is that in the USA, here and the UK, the excess food required by the cyclist for fuel is also eaten by the motorists (ie essentially cancelling out any effect of cycling). the motorists just get fat.

[AndrewBurns]

One of the most bizzare truths of that particular page, is that in the USA, here and the UK, the excess food required by the cyclist for fuel is also eaten by the motorists (ie essentially cancelling out any effect of cycling). the motorists just get fat.

Aaaaand then a fat motorist is more of a burden on the health system than a thin cyclist which uses yet more resources. Additionally damage to road infrastructure has been shown to be proportional to the mass of the vehicle to the power of 4 so vehicles as light as bicycles cause essentially zero damage to roads during normal use.

[il padrone]

Email him to tell him what intellect he is showing

I've sent mine.

[find_bruce]

One of the most bizzare truths of that particular page, is that in the USA, here and the UK, the excess food required by the cyclist for fuel is also eaten by the motorists (ie essentially cancelling out any effect of cycling). the motorists just get fat.

Ssshhh - if they realise that, being fat will be calling it carbon capture & storage

[citywomble]

Carbon emissions, irrelevant.

Cyclists run exclusively on renewable biofuel.

[gorilla monsoon]

I'm guessing the dude is a Republican.

[il padrone]

Yep..... he's a Republican But an odd one, supporting more taxes in a Democrat bill that includes your typical "bike rego" idea to "pay for the roads".

OLYMPIA, Wash. – A Washington State Representative who serves as a ranking Republican on the State Transportation Committee may be an unlikely proponent of a tax that would require everyone who buys a bike for more than $500 to pay a $25 fee.....

.....The $25 bike fee in question was announced by House Democrats two weeks ago as part of an overall package that would raise a reported $9.8 billion over the next decade.

Unsurprisingly, he seems to have gone to ground.

[PB12IN]

OLYMPIA, Wash. – A Washington State Representative who serves as a ranking Republican on the State Transportation Committee may be an unlikely proponent of a tax that would require everyone who buys a bike for more than $500 to pay a $25 fee.....

.....The $25 bike fee in question was announced by House Democrats two weeks ago as part of an overall package that would raise a reported $9.8 billion over the next decade.

Now I have no problem with that. would be a good comback for the ferals that scream about not paying for the road.

[il padrone]

I pay taxes .... and get my 2%

"If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet."

Bike tax/rego won't do a single thing to stop the bogan cat-calls

[Howzat]

If rego covered road building and maintenance in Australia your average annual fee would be about $1,500 instead of $350.

That's $1,500 before insurance.

[il padrone]

Wow! They sting you $350 in the ACT. Vic rego is only $232.

And I reckon to fully cover road construction and maintenance costs it'd be even more than $1500 for the registration charge.

[Howzat]

The $1500 rego fee estimate is based on annual figures of about $14.5 billion on roads and maintenance, and $3.5 billion in rego fees, which I found on the internets, originally from the ABS.

Roads spending looks like it will go up with the announcement of the new freeway in Western Sydney, costing $1 billion just for that. If that's to be paid for by rego fees - which it isn't - the $1,500 fee would be only a base level.

[il padrone]

Representative Ed Orcutt has evidently had a substantial flood of comment and emails. He has made a very humble apology for his poorly phrased email and misguided ideas about cyclists on the roads.

[Howzat]

OLYMPIA, Wash. – A Washington State Representative who serves as a ranking Republican on the State Transportation Committee may be an unlikely proponent of a tax that would require everyone who buys a bike for more than $500 to pay a $25 fee.....

It seems $25 for a bike is quite high in a state where the annual car rego fee is... $30.

In other (depressing) news from the US, the state of Virginia recently passed a $100 fee on hybrid cars. Apparently hybrids don't use enough fuel and therefore owners weren't paying enough "gas tax".

[birdbrain]

il padrone wrote:
Representative Ed Orcutt has evidently had a substantial flood of comment and emails. He has made a very humble apology for his poorly phrased email and misguided ideas about cyclists on the roads.

565 comments and from reading the first 3 pages not one in support of this morons dumb idea

[Mulger bill]

Now I have no problem with that. would be a good comback for the ferals that scream about not paying for the road.

Do I honestly think paying "rego" in any way shape or form would get us respect? Hell NO. You can't change a bigots mind. Without the rego furphy it'd be red lights/lycra/lack of flouro or any damn thing you can think of to vilify the minority.

If I thought it would, I wouldn't quibble about $50 pa per bike.

[wurtulla wabbit]

OLYMPIA, Wash. – A Washington State Representative who serves as a ranking Republican on the State Transportation Committee may be an unlikely proponent of a tax that would require everyone who buys a bike for more than $500 to pay a $25 fee.....

It seems $25 for a bike is quite high in a state where the annual car rego fee is... $30.

In other (depressing) news from the US, the state of Virginia recently passed a $100 fee on hybrid cars. Apparently hybrids don't use enough fuel and therefore owners weren't paying enough "gas tax".

They should pay lots more !
Partly for the battery production.
Partly for the coal fuelled electrickery they use and partly for thinking its a clean way to use a vehicle.

Muppets !

[il padrone]

In other (depressing) news from the US, the state of Virginia recently passed a $100 fee on hybrid cars. Apparently hybrids don't use enough fuel and therefore owners weren't paying enough "gas tax".

They should pay lots more !
Partly for the battery production.
Partly for the coal fuelled electrickery they use and partly for thinking its a clean way to use a vehicle.

Hybrid vehicles need not be fuelled by coal sources. This is the key question at the heart of climate change strategies - motivating the population and authorities to move to alternative sources, some of which are very plentiful. You can power you hybrid batteries by wind and/or solar.

The batteries are probably not too much more of an issue than any current automotive power source - and likely to improve greatly with technological improvements. Look at how bicycle light batteries have changed in the past 10 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_veh ... reductions" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Though hybrid cars consume less fuel than conventional cars, there is still an issue regarding the environmental damage of the hybrid car battery. Today most hybrid car batteries are one of two types: 1) nickel metal hydride, or 2) lithium ion; both are regarded as more environmentally friendly than lead-based batteries which constitute the bulk of petro car starter batteries today. There are many types of batteries. Some are far more toxic than others. Lithium ion is the least toxic of the three mentioned above.[54]

[Howzat]

Hybrid vehicle are powered by petrol. Mostly.

On the topic of whether cyclists should pay for road maintenance costs... I haven't done a calculation, but since most road surface damage occurs during the wet - potholes getting eroded away by wave action from tyres, etc - I'd wager that the majority of road surface damage caused by regular cyclists occurs when it's raining and they decide to drive the car instead.